1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a printing apparatus and a printing method which perform control to prevent an ejection error of a liquid ejecting head caused by the contact of a recording medium with the a liquid ejecting head when a printing medium is jammed.
2. Related Art
For example, as this kind of printing apparatus, a serial type printing apparatus is known which performs printing on paper (a printing medium) by moving a carriage in a main scanning direction and ejecting ink drops from nozzles of a printing head (a liquid ejecting head) provided in the carriage (refer to JP-A-2011-079186 (for example, paragraphs [0062] to [0066], [0078] and the like in the specification), and JP-A-2007-296663 (for example, paragraphs [0010], [0038] to [0066], [0078] and the like in the specification)).
The printer disclosed in JP-A-2011-079186 (for example, paragraphs [0062] to [0066], [0078] and the like in the specification) includes a detecting apparatus which detects whether there is a nozzle incapable of ejecting ink drops, and as a result of the detection, when it is determined that there are a predetermined number or more of nozzles incapable of ejecting ink drops, cleaning in which ink is forced to be discharged from plural nozzles is performed. Moreover, in this printer, when a paper jam is detected, the control of varying the intensity of the cleaning performed when it is determined that there are a predetermined number or more of nozzles incapable of ejecting ink drops is performed.
In addition, in the printer disclosed in JP-A-2007-296663 (for example, paragraphs [0010], [0038] to [0066], and the like in the specification), an ink suction unit which stores a capping state of a cap unit which caps a printing head is controlled to suck ink from the printing head in the case where the capping state is a state yet to be capped, and not to suck the ink from the printing head in the case where the capping state is a state already capped when an error is being recovered from.
However, in a printer not including the detecting apparatus which can detect the nozzle incapable of ejecting ink drops disclosed in JP-A-2011-079186 (for example, paragraphs [0062] to [0066], [0078] and the like in the specification), since there is no way to find out whether there is a nozzle incapable of ejecting ink drops, it is necessary to evenly perform cleaning after a paper jam occurs to reliably prevent the occurrence of the ejection error caused by the nozzle incapable of ejecting ink drops.
Even during the paper jam, in the case where there is the paper jam in a transportation system, the paper may not be in contact with a nozzle forming surface of the liquid ejecting head in some cases. When the cleaning is evenly performed even in this case, wasteful cleaning is performed. When the number of the wasteful cleaning operations is increased, the used amount of ink is increased in vain so that an ink cartridge is frequently replaced. Furthermore, with the configuration of evenly performing cleaning, there is another problem that standby time from giving an instruction to continue printing to starting print is usually generated due to performing cleaning.
In JP-A-2007-296663 (for example, paragraphs [0010], to [0066], [0078] and the like in the specification), the ink suction unit is controlled to suck the ink in the case where the capping state is a state yet to be capped, and not to suck the ink in the case where the capping state is a state already capped when an error such as a paper jam error is being recovered from. For this reason, in a state of the paper jam error, when the capping state is a state already capped, it is unnecessary to suck the wasteful ink. However, it is necessary to provide a capping state storage unit which stores a capping state, and an extra process such as a flag process to store the capping state.